Sleepers

One of the earliest San Francisco punk bands, The Sleepers were also one of the first U.S. outfits to stretch the boundaries of the style into what is recognized today as "post-punk." Featuring the deep vocals and inscrutable lyrics of singer Ricky Williams (formerly a drummer with Crime), the Sleepers' material stressed ominous atmosphere, throbbing bass lines, and quirky instrumental shifts that challenged the rigid bash-'em-out structures of early punk. Particularly in their later days, their recordings looked forward to elements of goth rock, in both Williams' increasingly Bowie-esque vocal delivery and the sophisticated electric guitar textures. The Sleepers' obscurity is mostly attributable to their sparse output, which was limited to a 1978 EP, a single, and a 1981 LP, all on small labels with limited distribution. Williams, an instable character who was thrown out of an embryonic lineup of Flipper for being too weird, later sang with the Toiling Midgets, and died in 1992. Drummer Tim Mooney, also a member of Toiling Midgets, went on to work with American Music Club. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]